Have you ever played Stardew Valley and thought it was missing a talking skull named Gerry; Witch burnings at the not-so-subtly-named Witch Hill; removal of skin, fats, bones, organs and more from human bodies; the ability to run a church and gather sweet, sweet donations; making paper out of the deceased’s’ skin? We’re going to guess the answer to your question is a resounding, “No, I was enthralled with the mundane-but-fun town life of Stardew. What’s this about skin paper?” Well, first you should sit down, Secondly, have you ever heard of Graveyard Keeper?
Developed by Lazy Bear Games and published by tinyBuild, Graveyard Keeper is technically a graveyard management simulator. The use of the word “technically” is an essential aspect of explaining exactly what we’re dealing with here. It’s advertised as a graveyard manager, yes. But most of your time will be spent doing anything from making Witch Burning advertisements to carving up cadavers.
The opening seconds of this tongue-in-cheek adventure see the playable character wiped out by a car whilst checking his phone – classic mistake. Awaking in a mysterious ‘ye olde’ village setting, you’re informed that you are now the titular Graveyard Keeper. There’s a brief tutorial stint that vaguely explains the basics of the Keeper’s role: every now and then a talking donkey comes to you with a corpse, you harvest the corpse’s previous organs and slice it into meat, you make a grave and bury the body, and then you sell that meat to be eaten in the village. If only it were that simple!
While this is the central loop of Keeper’s tenuously implemented simulation core, it takes its sweet time getting to that point. After the tutorial, you’re given a few tasks: Get a beer for a talking skull named Gerry; clean up the graveyard so you can open a church; acquire a royal stamp so you can sell your man-meat.
These “quests” don’t seem like they’d take hours-a-piece to finish, but Graveyard Keeper somehow finds a way to stretch somewhat menial tasks into feature-length fiascos – it revels in artificially lengthening every possible task at hand. For example, to sell your meat you’re going to have to find a royal stamp. You’re given two options: pay 50 silver coins after opening your church or get the stamp from an NPC named Snake after earning 30 friendship points with him.
These two branches have their own convoluted paths. Both require you to repair your graveyard to a respectable level so that you can open your church. After opening the church, you can purchase royal services such as the stamp, but during this point in the game, 50 silver coins feel like four bank loans away. You’ll probably want to befriend Snake then; he’s usually sneaking around in your house’s basement at night like any trustworthy person. Oh, blast! There’s a collapsed arch in the way, you’re going to have to grind a bit to figure out how to clear it! Oh, and you’ll also have to provide a few sermons at the church – limited to one per in-game week – to earn enough faith so that Snake will believe you’re the Graveyard Keeper. Then you can begin to earn friendship points.
No matter what you want to do, the pacing of individual quests is always stretched far too long to make it truly enjoyable. Learning new technologies to further your knowledge of autopsy, crafting, farming, smelting, cooking and more always asks you to grind for ages before you can unlock bare necessities for progressing through the story. It gets better later on, once the game allows you to settle into its core loop, but by then you’ve already experienced too much repetitious graft atop of the main game that it feels like a chore. There’s barely a single quest that doesn’t take multiple hours to finish.
It’s a weird fit for Switch, too. Whilst its contemporaries excel at providing a pick-up-and-play experience, jumping in for a quick burst here and there and it's likely to feel pointless. We’ve tried it, trust us: a quick burst here ends with nothing getting done but a smidgen of resource gathering. In fact, due to a remarkably useless quest-keeping journal, you’re likely to forget just what you need to do in order to progress anyways.
Above it all, at least there’s still a staggering degree of charm here. While character’s do audibly spout repetitious (and buggy) grunts and yelps whilst in-game text does the actual talking, the well-written dialogue always manages to shine through. You’ll find yourself adoring characters within the game’s world, you’ll just wish that furthering dialogue with them wasn’t tied to hours of menial grinding or walking back and forth through the same tilesets.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt that Graveyard Keeper is a fun game every now and again; there are bright nuggets of gold sporadically hidden within it. It’s the video game equivalent of Now, That’s What I Call Music: you get it for a few good hits and deal with the fluff in-between. However, if you’re looking for a strong competitor to Stardew Valley or Rune Factory, this doesn’t quite hit the mark.
Comments 37
Dang I was really looking forward to this.
Played it on PC. It kinda starts great, but then you do a lot of walk and not knowing where to go. I know it's great to find your own way, but it got a bit annoying sometimes I just stopped playing. I need a bit more
"It’s the video game equivalent of Now, That’s What I Call Music"
Problem is you can't skip the video game equivalent of Nicki Minaj and Justin Bieber.
Don't let reviews spoil your own mind. I really loved this game on the pc and will also buy it for switch. It is really a game you hate or love! Look to some YouTube movies about it and see if u like it before you buy this!
I just want a LimitedRun or Super Rare Games to give me a physical!
This game looked pretty interesting to me, but I knew it was one of those "wait and see" sort of situations which has become so common with indie games. Too often an indie will look promising and get good press only for it to turn out mediocre at best.
"acquire a royal stamp so you can sell your man-meat."
Sounds like a different type of game all together...
Question: Can we cut off corpses’ faces and wear them as masks? 🥴
Have to say, I don’t fully agree with the sentiment of this review.
Yes, you do need to pay attention to what you are doing and learning and yes you do need to gather. But when did something being a little harder (and taking a little thought) translate to it being a bad game?
I preordered the game and have been playing it quite a bit. I prefer it to Stardew in a few ways, yes it’s harder and yes some of the quests can take quite some time to complete but you have several on the go at the same time and it gives you time to learn the mechanics.
It reminds me of games like Lure of the temptress back in the day. You aren’t spoon fed how to complete each quest. Besides, saying Stardew quests were quick is bonkers! Some stuff required you to wait whole seasons or longer to complete!
Ooof... that feels low Like @CairiB says above, I prefer it to Stardew in many ways, which itself is an excellent 9/10 game!
6??? Ha ha ha ha. This game is good. Watch YouTube videos, decide for yourself don’t trust this review. I’ve put a few hours into it on Switch and enjoying it.
6 ? LOLZ
@SwitchedOn_Games I don’t get the weird fit for switch either. I pick up and play all the time, thankfully my memory seems to be holding up well enough for me to remember what I was doing last time 🙃. This game is well worth a go I think, i have put a good bit of time in and pretty sure I still have a lot to discover yet!
@BitLounger
If it looks like your thing then get it. I've not understood these 6/10 or 7/10 reviews at all. I've been engrossed with this game, had it on Games Pass but I'm stuck with a TV on that however on the Switch it sings! Once you get into the groove of things it all works out and its been a good replacement for Stardew Valley while we wait for that next update. I never thought I'd be ignoring Mario Maker 2 for this game.
I got the game on release and am quite pleased! As others have said above, it’s a really good game. Stardew’s darker cousin. For anyone on the fence about it, that also loves Stardew, just get the game. It’s worth it. Definitely a little harder (read longer) to start out than Stardew, but it’s good.
Also note, a bunch of NPCs give you quests that aren’t able to be completed till later... a lot like Stardew’s Community Center having Fall/Winter bundles...
Like a few others, I also prefer this to Stardew. The lowered emphasis on time is a big step forward for me.
god awfull game really wanted to like it. But like review says everything is draggggggggggggggggggggggggggggged out to tedious lengths. dosent anyone stop and turn around you know this is just bloody tedious to the developers during the production. shame as it has so much promis. but god dont
Was wondering when the review for this game would come through but wow I'm so glad I bought the game first.It's an absolute brilliant game and I'm enjoying it as much as I enjoyed Stardew Valley.
Yes a lot of the things are a bit grindy but personally I'm loving the challenge of it.And the fact some things don't explain what you should be doing but that you got to work them out yourself.Not every game can hold your hand and rush you towards the end.
I've been totally addicted to this game since it was released and would easily give it an 8 or 9!
Was close to buying this but checked out peoples opinions on Steam and it just seemed like a giant chore to play. I'll stick to the real life Sim games like Stardew Valley and the classic HM games. Too much stuff out or coming out to waste my time on this game.
@SpacedDuck it's indeed a chore. That's why I stopped playing. It just didn't work for me even though I do love RPG games with a lot of quest to grind/collect. But this just doesn't work for me. When you take on a quest... is the best thing to do it right away or you'll be lost soon
So it’s a bit worse than a 30-year-old Wonder Boy game?!?
@Wazeddie22 Defo - I gave it a 9.5/10 on my channel when I reviewed it and also have a "10 Tips" video on there too if anyone is stuck at all.
Ive really been enjoying it, in some ways more than Stardew.
If this comes Physical.....
I enjoy this much more than Stardew which I loved. Plus I can only think of two quests that aren't mentioned in the quest journal if you forget them. But they are characters you want to deal with every week anyway and have new prompts for the quests.
Don't use your whetstone on rusty equipment!
I've been really enjoying it after a few hours of playing. That said, it definitely needs a few quality of life improvements as it can get a little buggy at times. Overall, there's a really great game there but it needs a bit of love and polish
Surprised at the low score, since I had only heard good things about it.
@SwitchedOn_Games oh definitely deserves the high score.May check out your video and tips later,see if there's anything I don't know about yet.
Wow I thought it would get a better score than that, it seemed quite good on the eshop page. I'm now glad I didn't actually end up pre-ordering like I was considering for a while there.
I typically only lurk here but had to comment as reading this review, made me speak up.
I've played/completed this game on PC this past winter, since i didn't think a Switch port was coming. This is a very good game but it is NOT Stardew Valley. The author and others do it a great disservice to compare the two. I feel like the reviewer walked in expecting SV but got something completely different and instead was left pointing out its faults of why its NOT Stardew Valley instead of realizing it is its own identity. I also feel the reviewer didn't give the crafting experience a full chance to learn so everything became a drag, kind of like if you never used a sauna or snacks to refill your energy in SV and got upset with sleep being the only way "you know" to recharge your meter.
SV is all about farming and relationships. GK is a more complex crafting/management simulation that also has farming in it. You can farm in GK but its nowhere as full-featured as SV. There is a 7 day calendar but its only tied to specific major NPCs you can interact with (1/per day). There are no months/seasons, just a rotating week so there is no crop complexity. The game has a fixed character/story and there is no romantic relationships, because of the plot, just a friend meter that uses quests to incrementally improve and unlock options for the NPCs you'll deal with.
The best comparison is it has the visual and aethetics of Stardew Valley and the crafting complexity of games like Factorio with levels and levels of crafting that will turn off those who aren't looking for that detail of complexity, which is why i cite Factorio. If you preferred the artisan crafting of SV but wished it had more depth/complexity then this game is more in this direction. Graveyard Keeper is definitely a grind but i had tons of fun playing whereas the reviewer was obviously not.... "digging" it.
@CairiB This game definitely has a learning curve. There are plenty of things you can do to streamline/help your experience that might be best in reading a wiki to find out, like making muffins for quick energy/getting the warp coin to expedite traveling/unlocking shortcuts for quicker map travel, etc.
@zerocommazero I downloaded the zombie dlc the other day, it’s fair to say I am having even more fun with it now! Still learning, upgrading and improving and I am sure I am doing some things the long/hard way but it doesn’t really bother me. Loving that with each completed part I have a new challenge waiting for me.
So it's a lame management sim with a bunch of disgusting corpse themes and ugly 8-bit style graphics? H***, no! (Pun intended.)
@hadrian Then you just don't understand NL's review system in the first place! 6/10 is "not bad," while 7/10 is "good," which are both above-average scores (5/10 = "average"). If you enjoy the genre (I certainly do not), and none of the faults mentioned in the review are a deal breaker, then a 6/10 score is still a light recommendation that means you likely will enjoy the game, at least enough to not regret buying it.
If you think the game is good but accept that others who might be interested should do further research (like YouTube) before deciding if the game is right for them, then a 6/10 sounds like exactly the right score for this game.
@zerocommazero Then again, if you have to rely on a wiki to learn relatively important gameplay mechanics like that, then it's probably the game's fault for not being clear enough about those things in the first place. These kinds of things should at the very least be mentioned in a decent digital manual if an in-game tutorial or help system isn't feasible.
@BulbasaurusRex It's not fault. Some people like to dive in and enjoy figuring things out on their own while some people just don't want a mystery. Games like Dark Souls are notorious for their lack of hand holding. So a wiki is a great intermediary.
@zerocommazero That can be easily solved by including either an optional tutorial, in-game help system, or even just a freakin' digital manual!
In any case, there's a huge difference between self discovery of a game world, puzzles, collectables, boss/level strategies, and/or plot details; compared to that of important game mechanics for actually playing the game. Hardly any gamers prefer to figure out the latter on their own!
@BulbasaurusRex You dont accept that i purely dont give a f*** about your reply and wish people didnt reply to my messages because now i have pointless notifications when i visit this site
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